The November 2001 Harper's Index included the two factoids and credited the US Selective Service as the source:
--Chances that a U.S. soldier in the Vietnam War volunteered : 4 in 5
--Chance that a U.S. soldier in World War II did so : 1 in 3

These facts seem to undermine everything we've been led to believe about the "Greatest Generation" and the protest culture of the 60s. I'm aware that the Index can be somewhat misleading in taking its factoids out of context, but I am stumped for areasonable explanation here. IS there a logical explanation, or do I need to throw out my "Saving Private Ryan" DVD?

Originally posted by eggman61 The November 2001 Harper's Index included the two factoids and credited the US Selective Service as the source:
--Chances that a U.S. soldier in the Vietnam War volunteered : 4 in 5
--Chance that a U.S. soldier in World War II did so : 1 in 3

These facts seem to undermine everything we've been led to believe about the "Greatest Generation" and the protest culture of the 60s. I'm aware that the Index can be somewhat misleading in taking its factoids out of context, but I am stumped for areasonable explanation here. IS there a logical explanation, or do I need to throw out my "Saving Private Ryan" DVD?

I am a 79 year old volunteer veteran of the Army Air Corps in WWII. The number of ridiculous myths about WWII, particularly those by Tom Brokaw (The Greatest Generation) and some by Steven Ambrose, make me gag.

Saving Private Ryan is a fairly good movie, if you go for that sort of thing, but it is only a movie and is filled with factual mistakes and a lot of improbabilities. If you enjoy the movie, why throw it out? After all (and you probably won't know about this film) Gen. Custer and his demise bore only a vague resemblance (i.e. Custer was the 7th Cavalry Commander and his command was half destroyed) to the Errol Flynn portrayal in They Died With Their Boots On. But it's a pretty good rootin' tootin' shoot 'em up.

One reason would be that the average age in Vietnam was 22 while the average age in WWII was 26. And remember that in pre WWII America few men went to college and many never finished high school, so a lot of those 26 year olds were men who were already about 10 years into a career and going into the military represented a major disruption in their lives.

But there is also the fact that history tends to have a selective memory. There were about 350,000 draft dodgers during WWII (and thats just the ones who weren't bright enough to think of a legit way out of service) and according to at least one poll made in 1947, some 25% of Americans thought that our participation in WWII was a mistake.

It's not exactly in agreement with Harpers, but the following, from a Newsmax serialization of parts of Stolen Valor: How the Vietnam Generation Was Robbed of its Heros and its History, is close:

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Myth: The war was fought predominantly by draftees.

Reality: About one-third of Vietnam-era veterans entered the military through the draft, far lower than the 67 percent drafted in World War II. And once drafted, many men volunteered for the Marines, the Airborne, Special Forces, or other duty likely to send them to Vietnam.

After 12/7('41) there were no large scale, ongoing protests of World War II, the draft & the conduct of the war by the generation (more or less) doing the fighting.

The nightly TV pictures of 20-somethings getting gassed protesting the war (& some smaller elements chanting pro-VC/Ho slogans), juxtaposed with their age age-mates dying in Vietnam, made it easy to recall that "Kids weren't like this in WWII"

BobT makes an excellent point. In WWII they needed vastly more people and so had to draft nearly every warm body. That is proved by zigaretten who points out that the average age of soldiers in WWII was 26 compared with 22 in Vietnam. In '68 when I was drafted I met only one older draftee during basic training and he was considered nearly over the hill at 22. They didn't draft anyone over 26 during Vietnam. So the military's modest needs during Vietnam could be filled by volunteers and relatively small number of draftees. In WWII, they needed everybody.

The other thing to consider is that if you are older (e.g., 26) and have responsibilities, you might be able to get out of some if you are drafted but not if you volunteer so some people in WWII may have found it to be in their best interest to wait for their number to be called rather than volunteering. On the other hand, for a younger person (e.g., 22), without responsibilities, it might make sense, if you are sure you are going to get drafted anyway, to volunteer so that you have some say in where you serve and what you do.

In short, I don't think looking at the proportion of draftees to volunteers at any given time is a reliable way to gauge the popularity of a war or the patriotism of the draft age population.

Another factor is that after WWI the military was scaled back tremendously, and when the US entered WWII, the US had to increase the size of its forces tremendously. After WWII, as the Cold War began, the size of the military was kept quite large, and remains so to this day.

When I got out of college in 1961, I was commissioned and went into the Marine Corps. Why would I have done such a thing? Well, because if I hadn't done that I probably would have been drafted into the Army as a private. Vietnam was a police action and there were some of my peers that hoped it would become a war so that they could serve in it and have that in their jacket (these were career types). The point I'm making is that there was a draft before Vietnam and you either went to college (temporary avoidance), got married or joined up. For that reason, until Johnson really escalated the war drafting married men was not needed. That is part of what the fuss was all about. They started drafting those people that had gotten out of the draft mostly by getting married or who planned to get married to avoid it.

David Simmons may disagree but I think one of the big differences between WWII and Vietnam is that people were opposed to getting into WWII. As everyone knows it took something like Pearl Harbor to get us involved. But after it got going there was more support and a willingness to put up with rationing, blackouts, etc. that never happened during Vietnam. When it started Vietnam was not unpopular, but then the longer things went on the more unpopular it got. So when we look back it is like reading a book, if it ended the right way who cares how it started? WWII had a good ending, Vietnam had a crappy ending.

That I believe is why there were more volunteers and yet you hear so much about draft dodging, during the Vietnam War.

WWII was a full scale war. Access to items like tires were restricted. If you had an exempt job like mining, steel making, munitions, you were locked into those jobs. You could not quit, they were your service.

Unless you were drafted, Vietnam was just something on the news.

For people who did not serve, there was a very big differance between the two wars.

Originally posted by kniz David Simmons may disagree but I think one of the big differences between WWII and Vietnam is that people were opposed to getting into WWII. As everyone knows it took something like Pearl Harbor to get us involved. But after it got going there was more support and a willingness to put up with rationing, blackouts, etc. that never happened during Vietnam. When it started Vietnam was not unpopular, but then the longer things went on the more unpopular it got. So when we look back it is like reading a book, if it ended the right way who cares how it started? WWII had a good ending, Vietnam had a crappy ending.

No disagreement with the points made. As John Kennedy said about the Bay of Pigs operation, "Sucess has many fathers, failure is an orphan." The Pearl Harbor attack was a unifying and defining WWII event. Before that, isolationism was the dominant political stance. In my midwestern town a common pharase was along the lines of, "Well, we pulled their chestnuts out of the fire in the last war and they never paid us the war debts so ..." followed by the speakers other pet peeves. Aside to British and French posters: Don't rain all over me, I know that our contribution to WWI was minor at the most, but I'm quoting the opinion in my part of this country.

In my farming town there were two types of people. Farmers and town folks and there was no little friction between them. Farmers got "B" gas ration cards, townies "A" cards. The former got a lot more gasoline than the latter. So much more that farmers really didn't feel the restrictions of the rationing all that much. Farming was also an essential occupation so the farmers' sons could get a draft exemption if they wanted one badly enough and this caused a lot of resentment. The terms "slacker" and "wearing the white feather (cowardice)" were not uncommon. Behind the farmers backs, of course.

The idea that it was "one for all and all for one" is not only wrong, it borders on ludicrous. And I went into the Army in 1943 so I don't know if things got tenser as the war went on. But I doubt if they got any easier.

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That I believe is why there were more volunteers and yet you hear so much about draft dodging, during the Vietnam War.

And as for the soldiers in the two wars, the incidence of AWOL, in Europe at least, in WWII was much higher than in Vietnam (or, for that matter, in Korea). During the Battle of the Bulge in Dec. and Jan. 1944-45 riflemen were in such short supply that cooks and bakers and company clerks who hadn't had any infantry training since Extended Order Drill in Basic Training were put into the line. At the same time, according to historian John Tolandin Battle: Story of the Bulge, the equivalent of a division of infantry was AWOL somewhere in France.

Not that we were all a bunch of gold-bricks, but we were far from the unified heroes as Tom Brokaw would have it. The war was regarded as a nasty job that had to be done so it was. But very few people went out of their way to push themselves forward into the thick of the action. If we had to go we went, for the most part anyway, and that was about the size of it.

By they way, this is all my view of things. I'm sure you will find others who remember WWII differently.

The November 2001 Harper's Index included the two factoids and credited the US Selective Service as the source:

--Chances that a U.S. soldier in the Vietnam War volunteered : 4 in 5...

Without some footnotes, this statistic may be quite misleading.

What defines a "Volunteer?"

In the Vietnam era, Army draftees were assigned a serial number beginning with "US".

Army enlistees were given numbers starting with "RA" (stands for "Regular Army," I imagine).

So, if you count up the number of US's and RA's, you have your ratio, right?

Not so fast, grunt-breath! If a draftee walked into an enlistment center and signed up (as I did), he was counted as an RA. How many of these were there? In the Vietnam era, I think a lot; WWII, maybe much fewer.

So a certain percentage of "volunteers" were originally drafted and certainly never would have entered the military otherwise. It may distort the figures considerably.

And if you are wondering why I would enlist if I was so anti-military, here's why. Escaping to Canada seemed like a poor option, and enlisting, with some guarantees, like occupation-specialty (MOS) and initial assignment location, looked like the better deal.

Originally posted by Mr. Duality What age were the oldest draftees in WWII? I've heard people up to age 40 were drafted.

I couldn't find this info at the selective service site.

I don't know, and haven't yet found out, about the oldest actually inducted into service. But, my father and I both registered for the draft at the same time in 1942. He was 53 and I was 19. The age limits had just been changed to take in those from 18 to 55.

Originally posted by eggman61
--Chances that a U.S. soldier in the Vietnam War volunteered : 4 in 5

I don't know a thing about the military, but I know something about organizational politics. I'll betcha that the dangerous, dirty, and unpleasant work fell disproportionately on the conscripts. Experts, feel free to correct me!

I beg to differ on the comment above that the American involvement in WWI was not significant. At the very least, it was the straw that broke the camel's back.

The British and French were still using inferior equipment, genocidially suicidal tactics and pointless strategy when the U.S. joined the war. The Germans had a cessation of violence on their Eastern Front with the Bolshevik Revolution.

U.S. units had a success under the command of Pershing, who had prohibited the use of US troops in French units, and this had a tremendous morale effect against the German sailors and soldiers, who saw the writing on the wall: they had enjoyed great success against bad weapons, tactics and strategy, but even the field troops knew that an endless supply of Americans who would not simply commit suicide in frontal charges, had state of the art weapons in the Tommy gun (in short supply) and the 1911, the BAR, etc., the gig was up. When the German Navy was told it was going to make an all out attack on the British Navy, they were not used committing the same suicidal tactics of the Allies, they mutinied, and the gig was up.

I don't know a thing about the military, but I know something about organizational politics. I'll betcha that the dangerous, dirty, and unpleasant work fell disproportionately on the conscripts. Experts, feel free to correct me!

Nope. No unit could function very long unless the hazards were doled out pretty evenly. The casualty rate among platoon leaders (2nd Lieutenants) was high enough without adding to them the chance of being shot by your own men.

Quote:

Originally posted by DPWhite

I beg to differ on the comment above that the American involvement in WWI was not significant.

Well, it's a free country and differing from me is still permitted.

Quote:

The British and French were still using inferior equipment ...

The US used French artillery guns (75 mm cannon), French aircraft (Spad and Nieuport) and British Enfield rifles. In fact, some of our troops at the beginning of WWII were still using Enfields.

A college professor of the time once complained to me that other professors had blackmailed their male students: "Get out there and protest the Vietnam war, or I will flunk you, you will lose your deferment, be drafted, go to Vietnam and die!"
This set me to thinking about how *probable* that threat would be.
First, you would have to lose your deferments, which were numerous, then you would have to have a draft number that was of those selected, much less than the total. Then you would have to pass your physical, and basic training. Then you would have to select a combat or combat support branch, which in Vietnam varied between 1:7 and 1:13 combatant to non-combatant.
And then you would have to be stationed in Vietnam, which was not likely, as then as now the majority of soldiers are stationed in the US and Europe. And then you would probably not be sent to a "hot" combat area, and only if there was a 'slot' available--you would get "bumped" if someone in that unit re-upped to stay with his buddies.
The statistics seem to prove this out. In 10 years, the US suffered 56,000 killed, which for the first time just slightly more than half died of combat injuries than diseases. So 23,000 were killed by the enemy, or 2,300 per year, average.
2,300, out of a draftable age population in the US out of how many?
Not the worst odds for survival. Was it all a lie?

That story doesn't make any sense. How could a professor know precisely which students did or didn't protest the war? How could a professor get away with flunking his students for their views? After all, he could have been reported to a department chairman or a faculty committee for doing such a thing, and while there were certainly many professors against the Vietnam War (like most sectors of American society at the time, academia was very mixed in its attitudes toward the war), the number of professors radicalized enough to sanction the use of flunking students for their beliefs was trivial. I don't believe that story at all.

"... then you would have to have a draft number that was of those selected, much less than the total"

At the peak of the Vietnam war, they were taking just about everybody. I registered at 18 and was in the army before I was 20.

"Then you would have to pass your physical..."

It was hard to fail a physical. Unless you had something obvious wrong with you (e.g., missing limb) they were likely to keep you overnight to reexamine you and if you failed again they could call you back again a month or two later and repeat the process again, and again.

"...and [pass] basic training." It was hard (or, at least, dangerous) to fail basic training. The DIs were intimidating enough that I remember one guy who peed in his pants. I don't know that they ever actually beat anyone up but I do know that they (and the company commander) would punish a whole platoon if one guy gave them trouble. Then they would encourage the platoon to solve it's problem by holding a blanket party for the troublesome recruit.

"Then you would have to select"

Select?!?!?! There was no selection for draftees. Among the guys I went through basic training with, at least half (including anyone who had been to college) were sent on to Advanced Infantry Training at Ft. Polk and the rest were sent to learn to be cooks, truck drivers, etc.

"And then you would have to be stationed in Vietnam, which was not likely, as then as now the majority of soldiers are stationed in the US and Europe."

It was highly likely. Ft. Polk was on the way to Vietnam. Europe and Korea were filled with guys who enlisted or reenlisted (probably to avoid Vietnam).

"Even you would probably not be sent to a "hot" combat area."

Fat chance. Damn near the whole country was "hot."

"...and only if there was a 'slot' available"

There was no shortage of slots. Besides guys being wounded or killed, they rotated out every year.

I'd have to say, in contrast to your experience, that in my experience the chances of a healthy, non-deferred, 19 year old American being sent into combat in Vietnam in 1968 was probably over 50%. Why do you think W joined the Guard?

Nope. No unit could function very long unless the hazards were doled out pretty evenly. The casualty rate among platoon leaders (2nd Lieutenants) was high enough without adding to them the chance of being shot by your own men.

Well, let me ask you this. What percentage of conscripts ended up as infantrymen, stationed in Vietnam, engaging in combat on a regular basis?

What about the percentage of enlisted men? Officers?

If you say that the percentages were the same, I have no reason to doubt you.

But my instinct is that they don't draft people to shuffle papers in the Pentagon.

Well, let me ask you this. What percentage of conscripts ended up as infantrymen, stationed in Vietnam, engaging in combat on a regular basis?

What about the percentage of enlisted men? Officers?

If you say that the percentages were the same, I have no reason to doubt you.

Ah, I see what you are getting at. I misunderstood your question. I took it to be: In actual combat did conscripts get the most dangerous jobs?

It seems to be pretty much a consensus that the poorer and less educated among the population were disproportionately represented in the combat units in Vietnam. They had fewer resources with which to get draft deferments on the basis of going to college, skilled jobs, etc., but I don't have any figures. If they are available on the net, you can find them as easily as I can.

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But my instinct is that they don't draft people to shuffle papers in the Pentagon.

Well, I think they do. Support of combat units by logistic, communication, transportation, supply and all the other paraphernalia of military operations is vital.

As far as Wendell Wagner's contention that he didn't believe the story, thats fine, but those kinds of things did happen. I had a professor relate to our class memories of protesting on campus and how one professor during class required everyone to go out and protest or they failed. Another said they couldn't protest and he would actually go to protest rallies to see if he recognized any of his students and if he did, you failed.

Keep in mind that at this time professors had a lot more power to do what they wanted to as far as grading went. Its only after the 60's that the universities started really watch professors. Now that wouldn't happen because of oversight by administration but also because you'd get sued. One of my professors was sued by a student who failed the final exam because the professor used "negative numbers" and this was unfair because the student couldn't handle negatives very well. The student lost, but the point was that she did sue him.

Originally posted by galrion One of my professors was sued by a student who failed the final exam because the professor used "negative numbers" and this was unfair because the student couldn't handle negatives very well. The student lost, but the point was that she did sue him.

The point here is that we need to do something about preventing such stupid litagation.

Originally posted by David Simmons
It seems to be pretty much a consensus that the poorer and less educated among the population were disproportionately represented in the combat units in Vietnam. They had fewer resources with which to get draft deferments on the basis of going to college, skilled jobs, etc., but I don't have any figures. If they are available on the net, you can find them as easily as I can.

That may well be the consensus, but this site suggests that deaths were much more evenly spread over the economic spectrum than is usually suggested:

Interesting cite. If the report described is correct, then maybe the received opinion is wrong. It wouldn't be the first time that something that "everybody knows" turns out to be without foundation.

I never thought of it at the time, but during WWII you could be instantly identified as either a volunteer enlistee or a draftee by your army serial number. Volunteer serial numbers began with 1 and draftees with 3. Some ASNs also began with 2 but I've forgotten what that meant. I now wonder why the different number designations and what effect it had. I didn't feel any discrimination but then I wouldn't have, if the previous poster's suspiscion about dangerous jobs to conscripts held water, because my ASN was 17112159. I understand that now the serial no. is your Social Security No.

> As far as Wendell Wagner's contention that he didn't believe
> the story, thats fine, but those kinds of things did happen. I
> had a professor relate to our class memories of protesting on
> campus and how one professor during class required everyone
> to go out and protest or they failed. Another said they couldn't
> protest and he would actually go to protest rallies to see if he
> recognized any of his students and if he did, you failed.

I still don't entirely believe this story. I went to college in the early '70's at a notoriously liberal college. No professor would ever think of even asking a student what his views on the Vietnam War were (and they certainly did have strong views, since many of my classmates were worried about whether they would be drafted). Did you consider the possibility that this professor was making up colorful stories about his college days to deceive you? Did the professor explain to you how the attitudes of these two professors of his didn't mean that everyone flunked out, since everyone either did or didn't go to protest rallies and either way flunked a course?

kniz writes:

> The point here is that we need to do something about
> preventing such stupid litagation.

How exactly do you propose to eliminate stupid litigation without eliminating all litigation?

There is no statical or documentary support for what I am about to say here. It is base on my observations and in the nature of a WAG.

David S.'s figures on casualties rates for inductees and the numbers quoted for the portion of the whole force that was drafted make perfect sense to me. It was made very clear to everyone involved that a person who was drafted would end up with a very unpleasant job, but if the person volunteered (enlisted) there was a fair chance that they could not only enlist for a safer and cleaner job but would get a job that minimized the chance of being shot at. As a consequence the draftees tended to get the jobs no one wanted in the rifle companies and in the combat engineer battalions.

While there was no place in Vietnam that could be regarded as absolutely safe, there were places that were safer than others and there were some jobs that were flat perilous. Draftees tended to end up in the perilous jobs. Enlistees had some chance to avoid them. There were few jobs that were more dangerous than ordinary rifleman in an infantry unit. A disproportionately high number of the guys at the pointed end of the spear were draftees and a disproportionately high number of guys in the rear echelon were enlistees.

The perfect answer was to enlist in the Air Force or Navy where the chances of getting shot were minimal unless you actually went looking for trouble. The trouble was that both the Air Force and Navy had more people clamoring to get in than they needed and so could be pretty selective about who they accepted and who they rejected. It is my recollection that the USMC was not taking draftees, either. The other services could quietly sit back and gather the cream of the people fleeing the Army.

When I was a Ft. Leonard Wood, MO, in '67 and '68 we were training combat engineers, truck drivers, cooks and clerks. I think we were sending 80% of our engineers to Vietnam straight out of AIT but only some 30% of the truck drivers, clerks and cooks.

Musicat and Gelding have valid points here. A lot of guys volunteered for service under the promise (not always honored) that they'd get postings to places other than Vietnam, or at least MOS's (assingments) other than combat infantry. The cite on the draftee/casualty rates, if accurate, tends to confirm this.

As an aside, I knows guys who were drafted and spent their time in Germany while others who volunteered had their MOS's "temporarily" reassigned due to "shortages" and suddenly found themselves in Asian combat instead of Stateside or Europe.